Expressive Culture: Film

(4 Credits)

French films and French culture, examined by situating the films in their social, historical, and philosophical context. Topics include the relationship between the Avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century (futurism, cubism, expressionism, surrealism) and the cinematographic Avant-garde (Buñuel, L'Herbier, Cocteau), the echoes of classical French theatre (Marivaux, Beaumarchais, Musset) in the cinema of Renoir, the troubled period of the German Occupation and the work of filmmakers who deliberately chose to stay in France to continue their calling (Clouzot, Carné), and the influence of the existentialist circles of Saint Germain des Prés (Sartre, Camus) on the Nouvelle Vague.